Explore Shakespeare's Use of Metaphor in Sonnet 73

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“We choose metaphors in order to communicate what we think or how we feel about something.” In ‘Sonnet 73’, Shakespeare appears to be telling his lover how he feels about his anxieties and his advanced age. Throughout the poem, Shakespeare has used three different metaphors in order to convey the effects of old age. The poem itself follows these metaphors, from the yellow leaves of the first quatrain, to the smouldering ashes of the last, and from this, we see the slow and gradual movement from aging to death, as each metaphor succeeds the last. One way in which Shakespeare uses metaphor is to tell his lover that he must be regarded in the period of his life which corresponds to late autumn. He compares his withering body to iconic autumnal changes, such as the “yellow leaves”. The fact that he can’t decide whether it is “none; or few” that still hang suggests that he does not know how much time remains. Also, the colour “yellow” could be representative of the decaying process of plants as they turn yellow and brown as they die. The colour “yellow” also normally symbolises wealth, and so here, the yellow leaves appear to be the metaphorical richness of youth, slowly diminishing as the yellow leaves begin to die at the turn of winter. He also compares himself to the “boughs” of the trees which “shake against the cold”, implying that he is certain that he is dying as he can no longer bear the cold. Some might say that the image of the naked trees may be a comparison to the process of greying and hair loss, leading some scholars to believe that the metaphor of autumn was chosen for the imagery of barrenness where there was once growth, possibly hinting at Shakespeare’s own baldness. However, it is much clearer that the metaphor of autumn was chosen to make reference to the aging process. By outright claiming that he is getting old, a statement that some couples may

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